When Microsoft's Windows Chief Steven Sinofsky hit the road last month, Julie Larson-Green stepped in as the new sheriff in town (as far as Windows 8 goes, anyway). Larson-Green didn't inherit an easy role, so it's fair to ask: Can she fill Sinofsky's shoes?

Larson-Green, who has worked for Microsoft for 20 years and led the introduction of huge ideas like the ribbon interface for Microsoft Office, recently interviewed with Tom Simonite at MIT Technology Review in an attempt to offer insight on what it's like to grab hold of Windows' biggest redesign and attempt to bring everyone on board with the new look and feel.

According to Larson-Green, so far, so good. While Sinofsky was a strong force in the Windows environment with a brilliant mind and explosive personality, Larson-Green insists that "not much" has changed since she took over his position.

"I've worked directly with Steven for seven years but known him for the whole 20 years I've been at Microsoft," said Larson-Green. "We think a lot the same about what the role of Windows is in society, what computing looks like, and getting people on board with that point of view."

Getting everyone on board hasn't been easy. Windows has had a solid user interface design since Windows 95, which was the start of a more object oriented interface. Users had become accustomed to this for nearly two decades, and Windows 8 flipped that entire concept on its head.

Julie Larson-Green [Image Source: Microsoft]

Windows 8 features what was once called the Metro style user interface, with colorful live tiles and a repositioned Start button. The new design was mainly for touch purposes in mobile products like Microsoft's Surface and Windows Phone 8, but some have had a hard time digesting this new look for desktop use. So why the radical change?

"When Windows was first created 25 years ago, the assumptions about the world and what computing could do and how people were going to use it were completely different," said Latson-Green. "It was at a desk, with a monitor. Before Windows 8 the goal was to launch into a window, and then you put that window away and you got another one. But with Windows 8, all the different things that you might want to do are there at a glance with the Live Tiles. "

She added the importance of touch on desktops as well as mobile devices to enhance the experience of using Windows 8, while still giving users the option to have a keyboard and mouse. She said it takes people anywhere from two days to two weeks to get adjusted to all the changes in Windows 8, depending on how invested they were in the traditional versions.

This brings us to the Surface tablet, which is Microsoft's first homemade hardware running Windows. Larson-Green addressed the new product briefly (nothing about sales numbers or demand, which have been in speculation lately).

"It was a way to test our hypothesis of a new way of working," said Larson-Green. "It takes time for individuals to adjust, but it also takes time for the industry to adjust to new things—all the complicated things about the supply chain and issues like what sizes of glass gets cut. Surface is our vision of what a stage for Windows 8 should look like, to help show consumers and the industry our point of view on what near perfect hardware would look like."

Sinofsky, former president of Microsoft's Windows and Windows Live division, announced that he was leaving the company last month after a little over 23 years with the tech giant. It was reported as a "sudden" move that no one expected, but details about the departure show that the decision was contemplated for a while and even backed by Microsoft co-founder and chairman Bill Gates.

While Sinofsky was seen as a brilliant figure at Microsoft, his downfall was that he didn't get along with others within the company. He was notorious for picking fights with other executives, including current CEO Steve Ballmer, and even pushed former executives like chief software architect Ray Ozzie to quit.

Windows 8 is great...for tablets. It's great for phones, or for various 'devices', but it's patently untrue that Windows 8 is good for power users. Remember Ballmer's crazy "developers" chant? Well, wither Microsoft without the developers? You're being cast off into this homogeneous Metro no-man's-land if you want to write applications that'll be included in the Windows Store (you can still publish them out of band, of course), and that's enough to piss off a good number of developers.

But what really galls me is the dismissive way in which Larson-Green and friends treat the power user, as if they're such a small minority as to be unimportant. You "still have the option of using a mouse and keyboard"? Really? The OPTION? Mouse and keyboard is the way real work gets done on a computer. I realize Microsoft puts a lot of emphasis on the non-working, 20-something, content consuming, touchscreen worshiping, hipster crowd, but they don't realize they're tossing off one user base to make room for another. If they're going to copy Apple's business model, they better work out that minor detail.

I'm a power user that runs multiple Vms day in, day out. Last night I was messing around with 8 or so tracks which, while hardly power user status, does require a bit of ommpth. I'm also admin of a multi-blahh blahh no-one cares company.

Windows 8 is perfectly fine for power users and I'm looking forward to jumping across to Hyper-V on the desktop.

What, exactly, makes Windows 8 terrible for power users? I am a developer and I switched all my machines to Windows 8 and all the developers at my company to Windows 8 as well. We all love Windows 8.

Why do we love Windows 8? Because when you get over the fact that the start menu is now full screen you realize that Windows 8 is a faster version of Windows 7. Work is still done in the desktop with a mouse and keyboard... that hasn't changed one bit. And developers aren't pissed about forced into the Windows 8 App Store because they AREN'T being forced into the Windows 8 App Store.

And the start screen? It's more functional than the old start menu by a huge margin. There are lots of programs and shortcuts that I want to be able to access quickly but won't want to put on my task bar. I can pin these to the start screen where I couldn't in Windows 7. I can also just start typing and get access to any file, program, or setting on the machine instantaneously.

People just love to bitch and moan apparently. Most people whining about Windows 8 haven't even tried it or just tried it to check a box before they went back to bitching about it.

Losing the start button was a bit of a pain at first but I will get used to it. Windows 8 is fast though, I installed it on a spare computer I had lying around and the thing is quick. Overall I am liking Windows 8, it's just getting used to the new way it works ATM that is taking time but once I am accustomed to them I will work as fast or faster than I did in Windows 7.

"Intel is investing heavily (think gazillions of dollars and bazillions of engineering man hours) in resources to create an Intel host controllers spec in order to speed time to market of the USB 3.0 technology." -- Intel blogger Nick Knupffer